Page 34 - THE Journal, January/February 2018

EDTECHInsider By David Nagel & Project Tomorrow
Coding Clicks for K–12
Parents, district administrators and the community agree that computer science and coding classes will help students develop the workplace skills they will need to be successful in the future.
Data collected as part of Project Tomorrow’s latest Speak
Up Survey revealed substantial increases in support for coding classes, including a 21-point gain from parents from 2014 to 2016, an 18-point gain for district administrators from 2015 to 2016 and an 11-point gain from community members from 2015 to 2016. (See Fig. 1.)
Students Young and Old Are Interested
About two-thirds (67 percent) of K–2 students are interested in learning “how to write programs to make computers do things, like in Scratch or Minecraft,” and 8 percent said they already
do this. A similarly substantial 61 percent of 3–5 students are interested, and 13 percent said they are already learning this skill.
Among the older students, 63 percent of middle school students said they would be interested in a class or after
Fig. 1: Support for Coding/Programming in K–12 Schools
school activity to learn how to do computer programming or coding (up from 52 percent in 2014); 58 percent of high school students agreed (up from 44 percent in 2014). Just 6 percent of 6th–12th graders are currently doing this.
Online Learning Is Here
Students told Project Tomorrow they have taken or
would like to take computer science, programming
and coding classes online. (See Fig. 2.) The data here were compiled in a survey
conducted by Project Tomorrow involving 435,510 K–12 students, 38,512 teachers, 4,592 administrators and 29,670 parents. The Speak Up Survey was conducted between October 2016 and January 2017.
Project Tomorrow is currently wrapping up its newest Speak Up Survey, which is open for participation through Jan. 19, 2018 at tomorrow. org/speakup.
David Nagel is editor-in-chief of THE Journal and editorial director for 1105 Media’s Education Group.
Parents
District Administrators
Community
Take a class to learn how to use computer applications
44%
45%
52%
Take a coding
or computer programming class
50%
(up from 28% in 2014)
49%
(up from 31% in 2015)
34%
(up from 23% in 2015)
Fig. 2: Student Participation in Online Coding and CS Courses
6-8th graders
9th-12th graders
Already taken online
25%
15%
Interest in taking online
47%
42%
(up from 20% in 2013)
34
| JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018
Source: Project Tomorrow
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